Internet may be temporarily disrupted in Bangladesh for a week

Due to maintenance work that needs to be carried out, internet may be temporarily “disrupted” in the country for up to 7 days from 21st October to 27th October, 2016. The maintenance work is surrounded around the submarine communications cables that provide the country with its bandwidth. The Director of Public Relations and Publications of Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), Meer Mohammad Morshed has said the maintenance work will begin on 12:00 AM on the 21st of October on the Singapore end of the submarine cable and end on the 27th of October at 02:00 PM.

Internet users need not be too worried, however. Because Mr. Morshed said that the disruption would be temporary and during the maintenance an alternative will be planned. But the users can expect slower speeds during that time. The news will certainly be frightening for the internet population across the country as so much of their daily lives are now connected to the internet. They must keep in mind, though, that repairs will only make the services they use more durable and long-lasting.

Bangladesh is currently running on the services of South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SEA-ME-WE 4) submarine cable. The country is also planning to join SEA-ME-WE-5 by December of this year. Similar to how SEA-ME-WE-4 complements, rather than replaces, SEA-ME-WE-3, SEA-ME-WE-5 is presumably meant to complement the services that are already available.

Fun fact: SEA-ME-WE-4 is 18,000 kilometers long. (Source: Wikipedia)

Thanks to thedailystar.net for some of the information used in this article.

Mahir Amer is a college student in Dhaka. He loves tech, designing, arts, sports and writing. Math and science too. He hopes to get admitted to an American University someday. Most of Mahir’s day is spent thinking about football or working on Adobe Illustrator. You can see his work at https://www.behance.net/mahiramer